[X] ...And done for the night. She hadn't taken too much damage, but was in a lot of pain right now. Stay here and wait for Four.
Yang took a moment to massage a muscle on her left arm, as she felt it starting to seize up in pain. Gritting her teeth, Yang looked towards the broken door for a moment, then sighed.
Damn it. The poison stuff was still in her system, and it was only getting worse. If she ran off to help Four like this, she'd probably get distracted from the pain or just get in the way.
She wasn't strong enough to work through this just yet.
Miltia leaned over as well, clutching at her stomach. "Argh! What the hell was that poison!"
"I don't know." Yang hissed. "Let's just... Where's my scroll..."
She reached into her pocket, and pulled out the device. Quickly moving into the chat log that Four had set up, Yang ignored any prior messages, and instantly put her own in.
Got one. Yang typed down. Haseltii confirmed herself as White Fang, Miltia and I beat her in the bathroom the floor under the Fight Club. Got a bite of both of us. Poison hurts.
As she sent the message, Yang pocketed her scroll again, and took a step towards Miltia. "Hey, are you alright?"
"What do you think?" Miltia snapped. Then she winced, putting a hand over her eye. "Sorry, sorry. I just..."
Yang shook her head. "No, it's fine. I know you're hurt. Just wanted to know how you were coping."
"...Yeah, sorry." Miltia groaned. "I'm... I can deal for now."
Yang felt her skull pounding, a pulsing rhythm hitting her as she stumbled back, putting a hand on her forehead.
Groaning, Yang shook her head, and took a moment to wander towards Haseltii a bit.
"...We should move her." Yang muttered. "We had the building security helping us out, right? We should get them to give us a hand-"
There were footsteps from outside the room, and Yang looked over by the broken pieces of door scattered on the ground, in time to see someone step in the path of the door.
Decadus stood in the doorway, rubbing his shoulder slightly. "Do the two of you need help?"
"I'm fine." Yang and Miltia said simultaneously.
"You mentioned having that poison in your veins?" Decadus asked. "It must be... Ah, agonising."
Yang frowned. "Wait, didn't she bite you too? How are you so much better off?"
"There was a difference in circumstance." Decadus replied. "You were bitten in an out of the way location, I was bitten in the middle of a crowd. Perhaps Haseltii could control how painful to make something. Or perhaps my pain resistance is better than yours."
Yang decided she didn't care enough, and just leaned down to pick up Haseltii.
"Allow me." Decadus insisted. "You should just endure the pain, for now. It'll get worse in a moment, so prepare yourself."
Yang ignored him, grabbing Haseltii's arm and throwing it over her shoulder. Then, making sure Yang wrapped her arm around Haseltii, Yang picked up the larger spider Faunus, and tried to step forward with her. Her leg stumbled as pain shot up it, and she barely kept her balance.
"I can do this." Yang insisted. "Do you have anywhere to put here?"
"I had a discussion with the owner of the building." Decadus said. "There's a room on the top floor for us. The crowd up there has dispersed enough that we can get there without issue, but..."
Decadus looked at Yang and Haseltii. "Are you sure you can handle this, Yang?"
"I can do this." Yang insisted, taking a step forward. The pain shot up her leg and intensified, burning her up, and her muscles seized as she cried out.
Miltia's arm struck out to catch Yang as she fell, and she grunted as the weight of both the yellow haired human and the spider Faunus weighed down on her. Decadus stepped forward, grabbing Haseltii to take the weight off of the two younger girls.
"I insist." Decadus stated. "Four uses me as her pack mule as it is, I... Oh, I don't mind."
"...Fine." Yang relented. "Let's go, then. Wait for everything to finish up. I'm sure Four with have some good news Four us."
Decadus groaned, and Yang was suddenly caught by the warring desires for puns and her equally powerful if less long-lived desire to not know the reasoning behind Decadus'... Anything.
Then Yang's neck throbbed and her hand shot to where she was bitten, as she groaned again, stifling a cry of pain in the process. She leaned against the sink as Decadus exited the room, and he turned back as he saw Yang trying to stand.
The pain was just getting worse, and her vision was blurring a bit. Taking a shuddery breath through the pain in her lungs, Yang took step out the door as well. Turning back to Miltia, Yang offered a hand.
"Need some help?" Yang asked.
Miltia shook her head, wiping some sweat of her brow in the process. "I'm good."
Yang stumbled forward again, rubbing the bite mark on her neck as it started to itch.
Stumbling through, Yang started following Decadus to the room prepared for them.
Lying down on a small bed in the corner, Yang bit down on a rubber ball that had been provided, to stop her from crying out. Miltia was rested on another bed in the room, and the unconscious Haseltii was tied down and handcuffed to a third. Decadus was standing by the door of the room, flicking through a book as he paced back and forth between Miltia.
"There has to be some form of Aura manipulation trick that could help here." He explained, as he hovered a hand over Miltia. She made some sort of sound, and Decadus paced away from her.
"Haseltii's poison, it bypassed your Aura to bite into you. Either the injection process, or the poison itself, would then be something that used Aura to run through the system in the first place."
Stepping towards Yang, Decadus raised his hand again, and she felt a moment of serenity flow through her. Her Aura twisted around, and for a moment, she couldn't feel anything.
"Sensation returned slowly, as Decadus paced away again, flicking through the pages of his book.
"There has to be two possibilities, then." Decadus continued. "Either the poison has Haseltii's Aura infused in it, meaning it will eventually burn itself out by conflicting with your Aura, or it's nature is something that means your Aura is unable to counter it. If it's the latter, it's possible to determine how to counter the poison by getting a sample of it, such as the bit that flows through my blood, and using that to identify the poison and purge it from your system."
He paced over to Miltia again, as Yang's ability to feel things returned, and she started driving her nails into her palm to try and ignore the greater pain.
"Alternatively, if it's the former, then there's nothing really I can do." Decadus admitted. "In that case, simply guiding your Aura's into killing the pain would be more successful. Unfortunately, stopping pain is not something I've been interested in prior to this, so you'll have to wait for Four's arrival for a better solution than me simply removing your ability to feel anything."
He continued going back and forth, as Yang tried to ignore the pain and let Decadus use his Aura to touch at hers.
It was fine. She'd deal with the pain. It was turning on and off again, over and over. Yang closed her eyes as she laid back, with Decadus standing over her and depriving her of her ability to feel sensations, and just tried to relax.
She'd done alright. Beat up Haseltii. She wasn't strong enough for her to trust herself with working through the poison in a fight, but she'd endure it as she was now.
She wasn't going to let a little bit of pain beat he-
Once again, Decadus' little Aura manipulation started reversing itself, and Yand bit down more on the rubber ball as she tried to ignore the pain. It intensified, more and more, and Yang could feel herself nearly biting through the rubber before Decadus cut off her ability to feel anything again.
Yang tried to let herself just dose off a bit while she waited for time to pass, and quickly settling into a cycle.
Feel nothing. Rest.
Feel pain. Endure.
On and off, back and forth, the cycle repeated for a time.
Eventually, in a period of time that Yang lost track of, the young Huntress heard the door opened, and looked up towards it.
Four stepped in, looking somewhat annoyed. "Is everyone okay in here?"
Decadus turned to Four as she spoke. "I-"
"Not you." Four sighed. "Yang, Miltia, you two still poisoned?"
Yang said something that was muffled by the rubber ball she was biting down on, and Four shot Decadus a suspicious look. A moment later, Yang spat it out, and immediately cried out in pain as she felt her muscles burning.
"Hurts..." Yang groaned, between gritted teeth.
Four stepped forward, and put a hand over Yang's head. "This is going to hurt a lot for a moment, then not at all. Bear with me."
Four's Aura extended, and melded with Yang's, causing her to scream. The pain was all Yang was aware of for a moment, and took a moment to fade. Once it did fade, it took her a moment to realise something was touching her head, and another moment to remember who's hand it was.
"How's that?" Four asked. "It might feel a bit weird to touch something, but you shouldn't be in pain anymore. Did it work?"
"...I think it worked." Yang confirmed. "Thanks."
"You're welcome." Four acknowledged. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go fix Miltia..."
She wandered off, and Yang got off her small bed a moment later. She looked over, as Four repeated the process with Miltia.
"How'd it go?" Yang asked, as Four finished.
"Well, I managed to convince Otoko not to sell to the White Fang." Four confirmed. "And bought out all her Ice and Water Dust. Fuyu managed to find the human you fought waiting in an alleyway, and managed to restrain him. I'll collect him sooner or later, but for now..."
Four looked over at Haseltii.
"...We got her." Four confirmed. "Which is nice. But the third one, she got away. Nobody saw her leave, but the people at security saw they lost her when she stepped underneath a camera and just vanished."
"Great." Yang sighed. "Still, Haseltii would have been the most important person, right? She's the oldest, so likely most experienced?"
Four shrugged. "Who knows? That's how it should work, but old people have a habit of being incompetent. One's younger then most bureaucrats and business owners in Atlas, but she's also the best somehow. Won't know until interrogation time."
Looking down on Haseltii, Four sighed. "Getting information takes ages, but I'll let you know when I'm done, Yang."
"Sure." Yang waved off.
"Thanks for your help." Four nodded. "I mean it. You're good at this. That poison must've hurt and you don't look like you have Decadus' failing as a human being-"
Decadus let out a pained groan in the corner.
"-So I'm impression you managed to finish a fight with it in you. Truly, to have you at my side makes the task of Justice so much easier."
Four flicked her hair back and posed slightly, which made Yang chuckle.
"Yeah, yeah." Yang sighed. "How late is it, anyway? I need to get back home soon."
"I understand." Four nodded. "Miltia, do you mind walking Yang home just to make sure the chameleon doesn't try anything?"
"I'll do it." Miltia nodded, with a smile of her own. "I did alright too, didn't I?"
"You were great." Yang confirmed. "She was going for another bite of me when you stabbed her with your heel, and if that made things worse... Well, thanks for stopping that."
Miltia smiled, as she got off her bed. "Let's go then."
Miltia waved as she wandered off, and Yang walked down the homeward stretch to her home. The trees surrounding the path looked somewhat inviting, but she was starting to feel tired. Between the exhaustion that came from enduring the pain and the lateness of her return, Yang just wanted to go home and go straight to bed.
As her home came within sight, Yang spotted a brief moment of movement from out the front. The dog, Zwei, was running around the front, something carried in his mouth. As Yang approached, she observed, as Zwei carreid whatever it was to...
Oh. There's Ruby.
She was sitting on the grass in front of the house, lazily throwing the ball into the distance for Zwei to retrieve and return. Her eyes were focused away from the path, and as Yang looked at her, the yellow haired teen could have sworn that Ruby looked somewhat...
Melancholic, almost.
Zwei barked, dropping the ball, as the dog noticed Yang. Ruby followed it's gaze, and as her sister watched, Ruby's expression lit up, slowly, as she stood up.
"Yang!" Ruby declared, with enthusiasm. "I was waiting for you. Dad's already asleep and I didn't know if you had a key, so I stayed up a bit waiting for you to get home."
Yang smiled. "Thanks."
...She wanted to talk to Ruby earlier, didn't she?
It took her a moment to remember why. It had something to do with Miltia, hadn't it? Miltia, and her sister, Melanie...
Ah, right. They'd had a falling out. Miltia had felt like Melanie wasn't paying any attention to her problems, and Yang was feeling overly paranoid at the idea of Ruby potentially being hurt in the same way as Miltia had.
...Damn, she was tired. If just remembering that was so hard-
Well, she could have the conversation another time, maybe? If she was this tired, she'd find a chance to talk to Ruby later...
[X] Yeah, that seemed like a good idea. Yang needed to get some sleep. Nothing saying she couldn't do it later.
[X] No, she needed to do this now. If she makes excuses now, she'll keep making excuses. Get it over with.